The challenge
A cluttered, outdated site holding back advertising and subscriber growth.
The solution
A modern WordPress build with targeted ads and gated, tracked content.
The results
An easier-to-manage news site that works harder for advertisers and members.
About The Australian Mining Review
The Australian Mining Review (AMR) is a leading news and advertising platform for the Australian mining industry. It keeps readers across the latest projects, companies and people shaping the sector.
AMR’s revenue comes from advertising, so growing a large, engaged subscriber base of mining decision-makers is central to its business. Its website needed to serve editors, advertisers and members equally well, all from one platform.
The challenge
A website outgrown by the business
AMR's existing WordPress site had served the publication for years, but it had become hard to manage. It no longer reflected how the team sells advertising, and it offered no way to grow or measure its audience.
A cluttered news structure
Years of publishing had left the news module with overlapping categories and subcategories. Editors struggled to organise new articles, and readers struggled to find the stories that mattered to them.
Manual, untargeted advertising
Advertising is central to AMR's business, but the old site made it hard to deliver value to advertisers:
- Side banners appeared on every page, with no way to target specific pages or sections.
- Impressions were tracked manually, adding admin time for the team.
- Constant ad rotation risked slowing the site down for readers.
No way to grow or measure subscribers
AMR wanted to turn readers into members. To do this, it needed to restrict selected articles to logged-in members, capture subscriber data in HubSpot, and see which articles were driving sign-ups.
A dated design and a difficult CMS
The site's design no longer matched AMR's standing in the industry. Behind the scenes, everyday updates were slow and frustrating for editors who publish news daily.
The solution
Proving the riskiest features first
Membership and advertising were the features AMR's business depended on most, so we tested them before any design work began. We built proofs of concept using Ultimate Member and Advanced Ads, covering:
- Social logins and restricted content
- HubSpot tracking of new registrations
- Rotating ads across the site.
This let AMR sign off on core functionality with confidence, and gave our team a clear, low-risk path into design and build.
A news module that's easy to manage and browse
We reworked AMR's categories and subcategories into a clear, logical structure. We then designed and built new listing, article and author pages, including:
- A dynamic featured headline at the top of the news listing
- Chronological sorting, so the latest news is always first
- Related articles by category to keep readers on the site
- A "more from this author" feed on every author page.
Smarter, targeted advertising
Ads now run through placements, giving AMR control over which ads appear on which templates, including the homepage, news pages and internal pages. Advertisers get more relevant positioning, and the AMR team no longer has to settle for one-size-fits-all banners.
Gated content that grows the subscriber base
Selected articles now sit behind a free member login. Subscribe prompts on gated content open a sign-up popup, and each registration is tracked in HubSpot. AMR can now see who is signing up and which articles are prompting them to join.
A modern, clean design
We introduced a new brand colour palette and designed a fresh homepage, news templates and internal pages. Flexible banner and featured image fields mean every article displays well, whatever images the editors have on hand.
A CMS editors enjoy using
We built the site on ALYKA's WordPress base build. This gave AMR's editors a simpler, more consistent editing experience, so publishing and updating content takes less time and effort.
Content migration that protects search rankings
We imported AMR's existing news articles into the new site. For content that wasn't carried over, we set up redirects to protect search rankings and keep existing links working for readers and advertisers.
